The publication of Frank Kitson’s Low Intensity Operations in 1971 created a storm on the left.(1) An influential British army officer with considerable experience of colonial warfare was advocating that the army prepare for counterinsurgency operations at home. As far as Kitson was concerned there was a serious danger of revolutionary disturbance in Britain in … Read more
Puppet Masters: the Political Use of Terrorism in Italy Phillip Willan Phillip Willan’s Puppet Masters: the Political Use of Terrorism in Italy, (Constable, London, 1991) is a detailed and interesting book, dealing in a thorough (if partially flawed) way with a fascinating subject. It covers a wide array of interlocking subjects including the infamous P2 … Read more
Counter-insurgency in Rhodesia J. K. Villiers (Croom Helm, London, 1985) An expanded Masters thesis, full of descriptions of psychological operations by the Rhodesian forces (which failed utterly: and no wonder, they were useless), and rather less about pseudo-gang activities which, like their equivalents in the British operations in Kenya, were a success – i.e. they … Read more
Ronald Gray, founder and owner of The Hammersmith Bookshop (1948-1963) and Hammersmith Books (1963-2000) died on 30 May at the age of 87. He was a most remarkable person, with a passionate interest in everything relating to politics and to recent history. He developed the vast stock of out-of-print books in Hammersmith Books to reflect … Read more
[…] Afghanistan. One of the people arming and training the Afghan fighters was Osama bin Laden. While Plimpton served as editor of The Paris Review, he was an agent of influence for the CIA, according to a former ambassador who served on the National Security Council. That is, he was not an intelligence officer as […]
[…] particularly struck me. The first is in Number 51, Winter 1994, ‘Canadian Intelligence Service Abets Neo-Nazis’, describing how the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service was running an agent who founded what became Canada’s largest current neo-Nazi group, the Heritage Front. (Sound familiar?) The second was in issue 52, Spring 1995, ‘The Rise of the […]
[…] including Kirkpatrick, Schultz, Meese and Webster of the FBI. The major themes here are: The Soviet Union is behind world terrorism; the PLO is a major Soviet agent in funding and encouraging world terrorism. The minor theme is, of course, that the Soviet Union was behind the attempted assassination of the Pope. But covertly […]
[…] to the GLC in Croydon North East in March 1980. He was later a Labour councillor in Islington in 1982-1986 and thereafter for many years an election agent and researcher for Jeremy Corbyn MP. An accurate monograph of his political activity and connections would make interesting reading. He has a particular interest in Kurdish […]
Mark Felt is ‘Deep Throat’. Bob Woodward says so, and his word is law in this particular arena. No matter that Woodward had a dozen sources, some of whom may have been more important than Throat himself. The point is that ‘Throat’ is anyone Woodward says he is, and he says he is Felt. In … Read more
[…] Movement organiser suspected on the fascist right of having Special Branch connections. (21) Marriner was subsequently exposed as an infiltrator of some skill, having become the election agent of Labour M.P. Brian Walden and his successor John Severs at the time of the Birmingham Ladywood by-election in 1977. In early 1977 the British Movement […]
